


What the Morning Brings

by drekadair



Series: Tales from the Folly [4]
Category: Rivers of London - Ben Aaronovitch
Genre: First Time, Getting Together, M/M, Plot What Plot/Porn Without Plot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-24
Updated: 2017-02-24
Packaged: 2018-09-26 14:52:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,679
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9907322
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/drekadair/pseuds/drekadair
Summary: When Peter returns from Rushpool, he and Nightingale finish the conversation they started before he left. The one involving vodka. And kissing. A follow-up to Home Tonight.





	

**Author's Note:**

> ...and now, the continuation...
> 
> Peter's first words upon returning to the Folly are inspired by Sixthlight's "[How to Go Home](http://archiveofourown.org/works/5628460)."
> 
> Nightingale's line about only being able to make love to someone for the first time once is inspired by _War for the Oaks_ by Emma Bull, hands-down one of my favorite novels ever and a really awesome early(ish) urban fantasy.

“I am never leaving London again.”

I dropped my bag to the polished floor of the atrium with a thump to emphasize my point. Molly, who glided in from the direction of the kitchen at my arrival, glared pointedly at it, but I was too happy to be back in the Folly to mind. I almost hugged the statue of Isaac Newton on my way through the lobby, that’s how pleased I was.

“Welcome back,” Nightingale said from the doorway of the lounge. A book dangled from his hand with one finger slipped between the pages to serve as a placemark, and he wore a navy blue polo under a gray blazer and sharply-pressed slacks—casual wear, Nightingale-style. I was surprised so see him looking so relaxed.

“Where’s Varvara?” I asked.

“On her way to prison,” Nightingale said. “We were able to come to an arrangement. She doesn’t attempt to escape, and I don’t hunt her down and deport her back to Russia.”

“That was fast.” Between an incident with a little old lady on our way back from Herefordshire and getting fake-Nicole settled in with Effra and Oberon, Nightingale had beaten us back to London by almost twenty-four hours, and he obviously hadn’t wasted his time. “Are you sure that’s an effective incentive? Maybe she wants to go back to Russia.”

“If she wanted to go back to Russia, she could have left whenever she desired,” Nightingale pointed out. “That she has remained here in London all this time implies she is unsure of her reception in the motherland. At any rate, she would become the Russians’ problem and not ours, which is good enough for me.”

I wasn’t convinced, but Nightingale had more experience making “arrangements” than I did so I was willing to bow to his wisdom. Besides, it was good to have her out of the Folly. She wasn’t bad company, exactly, but a little unsettling to have around.

“Is that all your luggage?” Nightingale asked, nodding at my bag. “I thought Molly sent you down a couple of trunks.” He looked around, but Molly had already vanished back into into the depths of the Folly.

“She did,” I said, “but they’re heavy. I was going to take trips.” I was also hoping to smuggle his Purdey shotguns back into their case in the billiards room before he noticed they were missing. Assuming he hadn’t already. Not only did I not want to get Molly in trouble, I had a feeling some of the trouble might spill over onto me and Beverly.

“I can lend a hand,” Nightingale offered.

Detective Chief Inspectors do not carry luggage around. That’s what they have constables for. But it had taken both me and Dominic to load them into the Asbo so I didn’t think I was likely to get them up three flights of stairs by myself.

“Thank you, sir.”

We carried first one and then the other trunk from the garage up to my room. They were heavy, and after we got the second one up we both paused to catch our breath.

“What on earth did she pack in these?” Nightingale panted.

“Um,” I said intelligently. “Just about every item of clothing I own, I think.”

It wasn’t quite the truth but it wasn’t quite a lie, either, and I didn’t want Nightingale to open one of the trunks and find the shotguns. Though I had packed them on the very bottom, just to be safe.

Nightingale showed no further interest in the contents of the trunks, though. He glanced around my room with a mix of the casual curiosity ordinary people have for other people’s private space mixed with a copper’s professional nosiness. I was suddenly aware that, despite having lived in it for over a year and half, my room looked remarkably impersonal. I hadn’t had much space at the section house, and all the stuff I’d crammed into my room there rattled around the Folly’s larger space. Aside from a few books I’d brought from my parents’ flat and the poster of Estelle tacked to the wall, the room could have belonged to anybody.

There’s something kind of personal about having someone in your bedroom. It’s a place where you do very intimate things, like sleeping and undressing and having sex, not a place you usually show a visitor to your house or flat. Once I thought about it, it was a little awkward having my boss in here, and it got even more awkward once I started looking at him. The effort of carrying the trunks up the stairs had brought a faint flush of color to his pale skin, and a few locks of his always-perfect hair were straying across his forehead. I had a sudden, insane urge to reach out and brush them away.

Now, over the past two weeks I’d been doing a pretty good job of not thinking about how I’d kissed him the night before I left for Herefordshire, and I’d just about managed to convince myself it had only been the vodka talking. Oddly enough, being around Dominic and Victor had helped. Watching them together reminded me that I wasn’t really interested in blokes the way they were obviously interested in each other. Usually. With a few exceptions. Including Nightingale. 

And not seeing Nightingale for two weeks had helped, too. When we reunited in Aymnestry things were far too hectic for us to spend more than a few minutes alone together, most of which he spent giving me a bollocking for all the reckless things I’d done over the past thirteen days. Surprisingly, what hadn’t helped was spending time with Beverly, because while I definitely wanted to get off with her, it didn’t make me want to get off with Nightingale any less.

He caught me watching him and something changed between us. A jolt of heat ran through my body for no good reason. He raised his hand to his neck and touched the place, hidden beneath his collar, where I had marked him two weeks ago. I saw the moment he realized what he was doing and snatched his hand away.

The moment stretched. I wanted him to make some excuse to leave. I wanted to invite him to stay.

Nightingale finally broke the silence. “I’m glad you made it back safely. I don’t think I said that.”

Work was safe, familiar ground. “I’m glad, too,” I said. “I just wish I knew where I made it back _from_.”

He suppressed a wince, probably at my ending a sentence with a preposition, but he didn’t correct me. I noticed the deep blue of his shirt brought out the faint blue in his gray eyes. It occurred to me that what he had just said might be more personal than professional.

He took a step toward the door. “Well, I should—”

“I meant what I said.”

Nightingale paused. “What?”

I broke out in a sweat, but there was no going back now. “The night before I left. That I wouldn’t regret it in the morning.”

His eyes dropped to my mouth and he licked his lips, an unconscious gesture. “Peter,” he said gently, “You’ve had a difficult two weeks, particularly the past couple of days. It’s understandable that the stress might cause you to say things you would not otherwise.”

“So first I didn’t mean it because I was drunk, and now I don’t mean it because I’m overstressed?” I said, a little louder than I should have. “What conditions have to be met before I actually mean what I say?”

A flush faint of color appeared on Nightingale’s cheeks. “I apologize,” he said stiffly. “I didn’t mean to offend you.”

He didn’t offer any excuses or try to explain away what he’d said, which was better than most of the apologies I’ve received. My anger drained away. “No, I’m sorry,” I said. And because I figured I may as well get all the awkwardness over at once, I asked, “Would you have regretted it in the morning?”

“No,” he said, low-voiced. “No, I wouldn’t.”

I didn’t know what to say to that. And I guess Nightingale didn’t either, because he walked slowly toward me, as though in a trance, and framed my face with his hands. His palms were warm and calloused. I noticed that, and the smell of his aftershave, and how his eyes drifted shut moments before he kissed me.

We were both hesitant at first, but quickly grew more confident. He was familiar and strange all at once: touching him like this, kissing him like this, was like learning him all over again. I would have gone faster, but Nightingale kept the pace slow. When I made a frustrated noise, he smiled into the crook of my neck.

“Take your time,” he murmured. “One has only a single opportunity to make love to another for the first time.”

Which was both surprisingly coherent, considering I was sucking on his earlobe at the time, and surprisingly romantic, considering it was Nightingale. It was also surprisingly sexy.

I came up for air and said without thinking, “A day for firsts, then.”

He leaned back a little to look at my face. “Are you saying you’ve never done this before?”

“I’ve kissed a man before,” I said, which pretty much answered his question.

“Peter,” he said, so tenderly that I caught my breath. And then I just couldn’t stand it anymore. I reached for his shirt—I’d already managed to get his blazer off—and pulled it out of his trousers. As I started on the buttons with fumbling fingers, he slid his hands under my t-shirt and dragged it up my torso. I had to abandon his buttons for a moment as we struggled to get my shirt over my head and shoulders, but then I returned the favor and we were both bare from the waist up. 

I went straight for his belt next, but Nightingale slid his arms around my waist and drew me close. The feel of skin against skin as our bodies touched was a like a shock, an electric jolt. We were both hard by that point. I ran my hands over his chest, his ribs, his back. The breadth of his shoulders and narrowness of his waist was not just an illusion created by good tailoring, and he was surprisingly muscular for a man who was in his hundreds and looked about forty. Boxing, I thought, and chased that thought around absently as I explored the shape and texture of him, harder and more angular than a woman. My fingers found the small, puckered scar beneath his right shoulder blade where he had been shot two years ago. I circled it a few time with my fingertip and he made a small, almost pained noise.

Then his hands were on my waistband and he was dragging down my jeans and boxers. There was an awkward moment as I tried to toe my shoes off with my pants around my ankles without letting go of him. I managed it, but lost my balance in the process and would have dragged us both into a graceless topple if Nightingale hadn’t caught me and lowered us both onto the bed. He wound up straddling my hips, still half-dressed while I was stark naked. The fabric of his trousers felt strangely erotic where it brushed against my groin.

He noticed my reaction and ground his hips against mine, which was completely unfair. I said as much, and he laughed and rolled off me. Nightingale didn’t laugh much, and I liked hearing it and knowing I’d caused it. The bed wasn’t really big enough for two men to spread out, so his shoulder and hip brushed against mine as he arched his back and pushed his trousers over his hips. He sat up to get everything the rest of the way off, thus avoiding my own kicking-frantically technique. I leaned back on the bed and admired the curve of his spine and the little dimples above his buttocks.

When he was naked he stretched out beside me and began kissing his way down my body, from my lips to my toes and back up again. I should have expected it when he stopped halfway up and wrapped his lips around me, but it still somehow surprised me. He obviously knew what he was doing and really enjoyed doing it. I wanted to watch him, but the sight of him leaning over me was too much and I tipped my head back against the pillows and tried not to embarrass myself by moaning too much. After a while it became clear to me—to both of us, really—that my pride was not going to survive this intact, so I slipped my hand around the back of his neck and tugged him off me. The hair at his nape was damp with sweat.

He crawled back up my body and kissed me thoroughly, and I could taste myself on his lips. I slid a hand between our bodies and curled my fingers around him. His hips bucked a little and he moaned into my mouth. It wasn’t as strange to touch another man like this as I was thought it might be. It felt right, natural, good. I gave a few experimental strokes and he responded beautifully, open and vulnerable in a way I had never seen him before. We separated just long enough for me to retrieve a bottle of lube from the wardrobe and then Nightingale pulled me back onto the bed with our legs scissored so he could wrap a hand around both of us at the same time. Well, most of the way around, since neither of us was exactly small. But I added my own hand and we stroked together until we were both writhing and gasping and trembling. I was watching his face when he came undone, head thrown back, gray eyes half-closed as he watched me through lowered lashes, and then I followed him down.

Later, we lay sprawled across the bed in a sweaty, sticky heap. My head was on the pillows but I was at an angle, so one leg dangled off the mattress. Nightingale was draped over me, one leg cocked over mine, head pillowed on my chest. I trailed one hand up and down his spine, and he hummed in pleasure.

“So,” I said, because my mouth just doesn’t know when to stop. “Any regrets, sir?”

The “sir” just sort of popped out, I didn’t mean to say it. Considering everything, I wasn’t sure whether it was extremely awkward or mildly kinky. Nightingale smiled.

“Under the circumstances,” he said, “I believe you may call me Thomas. And no, I have no regrets. Although DPS may say this is a terrible idea.”

“I’m pretty sure this was your idea.”

“Yes, but you started it.”

He wasn’t wrong. We lay there post-coital silence for a while, and though late-afternoon sunlight streamed in through the windows I thought Nightingale might have drifted off. But then he said, “Peter, I’d like to ask you something.”

In my experience questions like that, asked in situations like this, never end well. But it wasn’t like I could avoid it. I said, “Sure.”

His head was still on my chest and he ran his fingers absently over my ribs. “My two shotguns appear to have gone missing from the billiards room,” he said. “Do you think, if I looked, I might find them inside those trunks we just hauled up here?”

I froze. “No,” I said carefully. “I’m quite sure you wouldn’t. In fact, I bet if you look again tomorrow morning you’ll find they’ve been in the billiards room the whole time.”

“Indeed,” Nightingale said. “And I suppose I simply imagined they were gone?”

“Stress,” I told him. “A common hazard of this profession. You should try to relax more.”

He was smiling now. “Any suggestions?”

“Let me show you,” I said, and proceeded to do just that.


End file.
